the Queen and Council, even so it was almost no less joyous to the Londoners, and most part of all others.”[399] Wyatt then marched to a house belonging to Lord Cobham near Rochester, made himself master of it, and obliged the owner with his two sons to join his band. His next movement was towards London. The Queen ordered the bridges over the Thames to be destroyed, to the distance of fifteen miles. The numbers of the insurgents increased daily, lashed into a fury of fear by inflammatory words, such as the following incident relates:— William Cotman, afterwards committed, declared that “William Ishley Gent. eldest son Sir William Ishley, Knt., came this morning to his shop, two hours before day, to shoe his horse, where he tarried the making of a shoe, and there used these words: ‘that the Spaniards were coming into the realm, with harness and hand-guns, and would make us Englishmen worse than enemies and viler; for this realm should be brought to such bondage by them, as it was never afore, but should be utterly conquered!’ And at his taking of his horse, he said with a loud voice, that all the street might hear it, it being scarce day: ‘Smith, if thou beest a good fellow, stir and encourage all the neighbours to rise against these strangers, for they should have lawful warning and help enough!...’ ‘Why,’ quoth the smith, ‘these be marvellous words, for we shall be hanged if we stir.’ ‘No,’ quoth Ishley, ‘ye shall have help enough, for the people are already up in Devonshire and Cornwall, Hampshire and other counties.’”[400] The Council, the Court, the loyal citizens of London were panic-stricken, armed men patrolled the London streets; friends and foes were scarcely to be distinguished in the surging, vociferous crowds that thronged the open spaces day and night. Confusion and terror reigned. The government sued Wyatt for terms, thereby only increasing his audacity. He replied by undertaking to lay down his arms, provided that the Queen placed the Tower of London, and four of her principal advisers in his hands, as guarantees of her promise to marry an Englishman. Mutual distrust gave rise to futile recriminations at the Council Board. Gardiner was reproached on the one hand for his precipitancy in restoring the ancient religion; the Spanish ambassadors, on the other, were blamed for advising the Queen’s marriage with Philip, to which the Chancellor had always been opposed. The ambassadors fled in dismay, disguised as merchants—all but Renard, who refused to desert the Queen.